• PEFSt xxiv. [1892] 144.
t Dearmer, Body and Soul, p. 289.
i Robert Burton, Ajwtomy of Melancholy, ed. London, 1866, pt. I. sect. i. mem. 1, subsect. 1 ; Tylor, PC*, p. 191.
§ R. Southey, Life of Wesley, new ed., London, 1864, pp. 16, 306.
II lb. p. 366.
Tl The Journal of the Rev. J. WesUy (Ever\'man ed.), i. 190, 23f:, 237, 295, 363, 412, 657, ii. 100, 225, 259, 309, iii. 149.
•" HJ xiii. [1914] 191. tt OED iu. 186.
t J Tylor, PC* ii. 140.
§§ Dearmer, Body and Soul, p. 878.
I! II Tvlor, PC* ii. 404.
HI R. C. Caldwell, CR xxvU. [1876] 869 f.
*•• Tylor, PC* ii. 182.
ttt Howton. Divine Healina, p. 82.
Itt lb. p. 90.
254
POSSESSIONS
POWER, POWERS
the lower culture do and did, to tlie action of demons — a belief conlirmed among the C'liinese Christians by the narratives of the NT. Nevius did not attempt to cast out the demons by exorcism or the use of the name of Jesus. The most that he and the other missionaries did was to pray for the relief of the patient . . . ' and the demon, speaking apparently in a diU'erent personality and with a difl'erent voice, confessed the power of .Jesus, and departed.'* Howton, who declares he lias seen demons possessing human bodies, and i)ro- ducing exactly similar efiects to those described in the Word of God,+ gives many instances of cures efl'ected by himself, of which the following is typical. A local preacher afflicted evidently by multiple personality had baflled Howton, but lie says, ' early one morning the Spirit of God came upon me and I commanded the Demon in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to come out of him. The Evil Spirit threw him on the floor, made him writhe like a serpent, and foam at the mouth, and then left him. He was cured.' t
It is somewhat difficult to draw the line between the milder forms of demonomania and certain forms of temptation, convictions of sin, and even theological scepticism. John Bunyan's prolonged periods of melancholia, Brainerd's deep convictions of evil, Carlyle's ' Stygian darkness are all in- stances in point. In many cases these feelings are symptoms of an already existing pathological state. This feeling in its strongest form ' manifests itself in the idea of demoniacal possession. The foreign evil power by which the patient imagines he i-j governed, assumes dift'erent demoniacalshapes, according to the prevailing superstitions and beliefs of the epoch and country. The chief differentiating mark of demon possession is the automatic pre- sentation and the persistent and consistent acting out of a new personality. With this are associated convulsions of the voluntary muscles, contraction of the larynx which alters the voice in a striking manner, antesthesia of different important organs, hallucinations of sight and hearing. This delirium is at times accompanied by intermittent paroxysms of violent convulsions, evidently analogous to epi- leptic or, still more frequently, hysterical attacks, which are separated by intervals of perfect lucidity.' § At Gheel in Belgium there was a shrine of St. Dymphna to which in former days lunatics were carried in large numbers to have the demons expelled. Manj^ are still taken there, but to be treated by physicians.il That men have believed in certain things ' is ground for holding that such ideas were indeed produced in men's minds by efficient causes, but it is not ground for holding that the rites in question are profitable, the beliefs sound, and the history authentic' IT To seek, to-day, for the action of a demon in a case of demonomania would be just as sensible as to take a walk into a desert to have an interview with Lilith or Azazel. As Comte well said, ' no conception can be understood except through its history.'** P. A. GORDON Clark.
POSSESSIONS.— See Wealth and Community OF Goods.
POTENTATE.— The word occurs only in the designation of God in 1 Ti 6'^ ' the blessed and only Potentate (Smdirrris), the King of kings, and
• Neviua, Demon Possession, p. vii, etc. ; A. Lang, The Making of Religiony London, 1S98. p. 141.
t Howton, Divine Healing, p. 89.
! lb. pp. 93, 103-106, ins ; R. Rrown, Demonoloqy and Witch- crajt, p. 90 ; Nevius, Demon Possessioii, pp. 13, 35.
§ VV. Griesinger, Mental Pathology, New York, 1882, pp. 168, 186, 206 ; Exp, 7th ser., viii. 610.
II K. Baedeker, Belgium and Holland'^, London, 1894, p. 184.
H Tylor, PC* i. 13. •• Quoted by Tylor, ib. p. 19.
Lord of lords.' This is the only instance in the NT in which the word dwda^Trj! is applied to God. It occurs with tolerable frequency in this sense in the apocryphal books, e.g. Sir 46''- ', 2 Mac 3" 12'°, 3 Mac 2'. It is characteristic of the Pastoral Epistles to set God in the foreground as the author of salvation, and the heaping up of attributes in this pass.age to denote the Divine sovereignty may be merely an instance of this tendency. Some, however, iind underlying it a protest against Gnostic misrepresentations, or against the growing practice of Emperor-worship.
G. Wauchope Stewart. POTTER (/(fpa/neils). — The ceramic art is of great antiquity. Wherever the primitive races of man- kind found clay, they became potters. Rude baked vessels are found with the remains of our remotest ancestors. In the story of the creation, God is represented as a Potter moulding the human body out of the dust of the ground (Gii 2' ; cf. Job 10" 33"), and thoughtful men in all ages have figured themselves, in their whole relation to God, as clay in the Potter's hands (Is 45" 64', Jer 18", Ro 9-'). In one aspect the metaphor is still readily accepted, for all devout men believe in the Divinity that .shapes their ends. The classical modern expression of the doctrine is found in Browning's Babbi Ben Ezra :